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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/6/2000 12:55:00 PM
From: Land Shark  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 29986
 
Terve Nuori Suomalainen Mies... Sina olet oikessa!

Given the dim hope of success in the longer term, what's the chance of getting re-financing for survival beyond the 4 months horizon when they run out cash?



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/6/2000 1:38:00 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29986
 
Tero, So do you think GSTRF has a high likelihood of going bust before the end of next year? Do you think QCOM will pull the plug and be forgiven by analysts?



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/6/2000 3:37:00 PM
From: Sword  Respond to of 29986
 
Tero, your analysis is stellar. You hit the nail on the head. That is why Iridium is a relevant comparison.

Read it and weep longs. Or better yet...sell.

-Sword



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/6/2000 4:43:00 PM
From: rf_hombre  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29986
 
Tero, please allow me to interject

®Iridium had 14 000 subscribers after its first quarter. Analysts seem to expect that Globalstar finished its first quarter with 3 000 - 4 000 subcribers at most¯
Iridium had by design a global footprint from day 1. G* relies on local PSTN connections more fundamentally so I donït think the comparison is a fair one. The importance here is not the number of subs but rather the d/dt or take up rate. I would be extatic with 4000 subs and a take up rate of 10k per week! or even better an increasing take up rate.

®I guess we all agree that 1.5 million subs by the end of 2001 is the bare minimum Globalstar needs to succeed.¯
I hereby affirm that USA/Canada/Brazil/Australia will have more than 1.5 million subs on their Home Location Registers, by Dec 31 2001.

®Globalstar needs global success to survive - not success in "selected" countries.¯
I donït understand why? G* is Gateway blind but minutes sensitive. I can assure you that if 90 % of 4 M subs are distributed accross 4 SPïs with the remaining 400k across the other 16 SPïs, G* and its shareholders would be doing quite well. Service Provider Diversity works.

®Both Vodafone and Qualcomm are currently facing share price trouble. The last thing these companies need is to muddy their earnings outlook by shackling the companies to Globalstar.¯
Practically anyone with a pulse has been facing share price trouble. Thatïs just the current conjecture but basing a companyïs future as QCOM would in this case, on some temporary dip in the market would be a bit silly. I donït think Dr. J is that shortsighted. There is far more at stake than 1 Q of unsatifactory earnings.

®The very instant Iridium turned into an earnings outlook problem, Motorola knifed the baby. It did not wait around to see how Wall Street would handle a permanent drag on future earnings; it just pulled the plug¯
Iridiumïs problem was not so much Wall Street as was the realization by MOT that IRID business model was rendered obsolete by wide acceptance of cellular and the ensuing reduction in phone price and airtime. QCOM backs G* because it sees the latter as a cash cow, albeit sometime in the future.G* CDMA is also an enabler for QCOMïs foray into 3G.



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/6/2000 6:15:00 PM
From: FJB  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29986
 
They kept Iridium going for two years with weaker partners and a much more expensive(fixed operating costs) system. It is not difficult to see G* running for that period of time, but the subscriber numbers will dwarf those of Iridium very quickly.



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/6/2000 8:41:00 PM
From: SKIP PAUL  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29986
 
Tero, You shouldn't mention Iridium and Globalstar in the same breath. Instant loss of credibility. Different animal different league.



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/7/2000 11:37:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Respond to of 29986
 
Tero, I agree with you. Globalstar dithering around say the next quarter will "for sure" be the real one is wasting time. The minutes are simply too expensive and Vodafone [Verizon] is the company primarily responsible for the excessive charge per minute.

After a week of sales, any half-alive salesman will know whether they have a hot-seller on their hands. We obviously don't, anecdotes to the contrary notwithstanding.

118,000 billable minutes 5 months after the hard launch last November, last century is unimpressive. That's $50,000 for April. Not enough to zoom the GSTRF price up to $1000 a share.

These shorts are on a winner here, for sure! They'll short it to zero, for sure!

But you were a little unfair here:

<...you argue that Vodafone or Qualcomm may be on the verge of taking over Globalstar - probably based on the Australia/China/Russia outlook. And that's cruel. It's cruel, because it offers an artificial glimmer of hope.

Both Vodafone and Qualcomm are currently facing share price trouble. The last thing these companies need is to muddy their earnings outlook by shackling the companies to Globalstar. Nobody knows how much it will cost to keep Globalstar operating through 2001. And then 2002.
>

Q! or Verizon taking over Globalstar is NOT good for GSTRF stockholders so in the important sense, it is NOT a glimmer of hope. Certainly it means Globalstar LP will continue in business and service will be offered, but dilution of GSTRF shareholders could be serious, depending on just who will put how much in at what price. I'll put my share in at $10. But I can't fund it all. My guess is that Q! would be prepared to fund all they could get at about $6 a share. Any less than that and Verizon [Vodafone] would be in like a hungry dog to capture the wholesale margin too.

This is a share-bargaining battle. I want to own it. So does Q! so does Verizon, so do the other Service Providers, so does Loral.

Vodafone is probably demanding GlobalstarLP and Q! drop their wholesale prices before they give ground on retail minutes. Q! maybe figures they won't drop their handsets at all as it's up to the minute merchants to get their minute prices right since they have the long-term control.

Meanwhile, we have an SI short-squeeze being planned. Not for a week or two yet, so everyone relax for now...

Maurice

[Vultures, eagles and other carrion hunters or predators need to watch out or they'll be dinner for a big cat].



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)5/10/2000 2:46:00 PM
From: Lu_Xun  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29986
 
Tero:

I'm sorry. I just don't buy the notion that the partners will walk away from G* as casually as MOT walked away from Iridium. The most basic difference is this: Iridium's service just basically didn't work very well. MOT knew this, IMO, and so they realized that additional financing would never solve the basic problem that nobody really wanted a satellite phone service that just didn't work.

But from a technical point of view, GlobalStar's service works VERY well, as almost everyone now is forced to admit -- even the hard core critics. A service that works this well clearly has value -- the only real question is how to get the capital structure into a posture that will allow the company to operate profitably. There are lots of ways to do this. I can only infer from this that the partners will NOT shut the service down and deorbit the satellites, as MOT is doing with Iridium presently.

So the satellite system will undoubtedly survive and operate. Equity dilution or (shudder) cancellation of the existing shareholders' equity, however, cannot be ruled out as a possibility.

For the record: I'm long 3000 shares of LOR and 2000 GSTRF.

Lu Xun



To: tero kuittinen who wrote (12219)10/24/2000 6:22:38 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 29986
 
<Maurice - you argue that Vodafone or Qualcomm may be on the verge of taking over Globalstar - probably based on the Australia/China/Russia outlook. And that's cruel. It's cruel, because it offers an artificial glimmer of hope. >

Funnily, a few days after you wrote that, QUALCOMM bought more shares in Globalstar by converting their vendor financing to a loan and stockholding. Vodafone has also put in more money [in exchange for shares]. So the process is underway. As I pointed out at the time, that is NOT good for existing shareholders and they are being sliced and diced as the incredibly long, slow, tortuous, torturous soft rollout wends its languid way around the world while shareholders gradually collapse financially in the long, dark, night.

It's now half a year since you wrote that. We remain very much in the "Jam Tomorrow" jam. Waiting to be saved by the distant promise of SCADA, ARNAV, IFN, "Time or Money" promotions, more accurately described as "Your Money or Your Life" if you check out the absurdly expensive Globalstar minute rates from Outback Australia to the USA or from Poland to USA using the absurdly greedy Vodafone UK Service Provider which shows NO Globalstar service outside Europe on their coverage map which is now half a year out of date - they prepared it in June, which shows how much attention Vodafone is giving to Globalstar.

I thought you might need another brief Globalstar Gloat [GG]to cheer you through the long and cold dark days of Finland, or Noo Yawk if you have been sucked into the huge maw of The New Paradigm and moved there. If you are in Noo Yawk, you could have the added pleasure of wandering down to the G! Chairman's lair to bait Bernie.

Many were expecting Globalstar to fail in Y2K. They have been disabused but continue with one of the highest short interests [4th or thereabouts].

Quarterly results will be out in a few days. I doubt we'll have 200,000 subscribers [as per plan]. I doubt the monthly MOU per subscriber will be 150 [as per plan]. I doubt the useless and greedy service providers have improved the situation. No lessons were learned from Iridium. I wonder when the Service Providers will be slapped in the face with their exclusivity contracts. I hope the lawyers are ready to roll. The weirdest thing is that Globalstar seems unable to determine how many subscribers there are or MOU have been used, according to the conference call. Maybe Bernie is operating an honesty-box system.

Misery today, Jam Tomorrow while a ghostly constellation swoops through space unused.

Mqurice

PS: Market Researchers are the most absurd species extant on the planet. Fancy Bernie and the Globalstar Gang [GG] believing their predictions of demand. They ask stupid questions such as "Would you like a phone which you could use anywhere on earth?" Not surprisingly, the respondent says "Yes". They then ask, "Would you pay $1 a minute for the service?" The respondent says yes, no or maybe and they count them up then multiply by everyone on earth. "How about $2 a minute?" A few drop off.

A few years later, they do it in real-time, in 3D, but nobody told the subscriber there are a few glitches and the handset weighs a ton and the battery goes flat in less than a day and they can't receive calls anyway. So guess what?

I've seen real, live market researchers up close and they are NOT engineers. They have learned a bit of statistics [sort of] and that's about it. They are more like New Age Mystics than scientists.

[Just a bit of venting - bear in mind, some of my best friends are market researchers and I think they should be treated as human so I'm not prejudiced]